A perfect storm of onerous paperwork, angry homeowners, and high-stakes deadlines is brewing for one of San Francisco’s most vital (but least sexy) government agencies.
The assessor-recorder’s office, which handles the city’s property taxes, has become overwhelmed as pandemic aftershocks continue to ripple through San Francisco. The result is growing financial peril for both taxpayers and a city staring down significant budget shortfalls.
If the city doesn’t complete an extraordinary mountain of work within a state-mandated timeline, it risks paying out more than $1 billion in property tax refunds. As the city furiously works to prevent that fate, individual taxpayers find themselves playing a financially straining waiting game…